Key points
- YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit from President Trump.
- Trump had sued the company for suspending his account after the Jan. 6 riot. The deal makes Google the last of the three big tech companies to settle with Trump.
- $22 million of the settlement will be allocated toward the construction of a new ballroom at the White House.
- YouTube admitted no wrongdoing and will not have to change its policies as part of the deal.
Google’s YouTube has agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over the suspension of his account following the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. With this deal, Google becomes the last of the three big tech companies to resolve lawsuits from Trump, who had accused them of unlawfully silencing conservative voices.
Trump sued YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), and Meta (Facebook’s parent company) in 2021. X and Meta settled their lawsuits earlier this year for $10 million and $25 million, respectively.
Under the terms of the YouTube settlement, the company will not admit any wrongdoing and will not be required to change any of its policies. The bulk of the money, $22 million, will be paid on Trump’s behalf to the Trust for the National Mall.
The court filing specifies that this money will go toward the construction of a new $200 million ballroom that Trump is building at the White House. The remainder of the settlement money will be distributed to other plaintiffs in the case.
YouTube suspended Trump’s ability to upload new videos after the Capitol riot but did not permanently ban him. His account was restored in 2023.
The settlement closes another chapter in the long-running battle between Trump and the social media giants that once de-platformed him, with all three now having paid out significant sums to resolve the legal disputes.
